Hi Anonymous,

Thank you for your suggestion. Sport and fitness is an important part of any lifestyle, and a big part of my work is to encourage students to get more involved in sports.

Whilst I would love to be able to offer Sport and Wellbeing membership out to our hard working volunteers, there are huge budgetary implications with this suggestion that unfortunately would make this impossible at the moment. To offer the lowest value membership (Sports Pass - £110) to all of our elected student leaders, senators and trustees (around 60 people), this would cost the Union £6,600 which is roughly equivalent to the entire democracy zone budget. If we were to also offer this to all of our elected course reps as well this would cost the Union £50,600 annually, which is roughly 20% of the total amount we award to all of our clubs and societies in grants.

Whilst the benefits to our volunteers  with this suggestion would be undeniable, we would struggle to justify the impact of this considerable spend when compared to the wider benefits it could potentially provide to our clubs and societies. That's not to say that we are against the idea of rewarding our volunteers though! We regularly host free BBQs for Academic Reps, give out numerous awards for volunteers at events such as Athletic Union Ball, Excellence in Volunteering Awards, and the Academic Awards, provide practical support through our representation and activities teams throughout the year, award LinkedIn eBadges through our STRIVE volunteer recognition scheme, and more recently we have given out SUSU bars discount cards to all of our Student Leaders and Department and School Presidents that give 10% off drinks in our outlets.

We are always interested in receiving feedback on better ways to reward our volunteers however, so if you have any other suggestions we would be happy to receive them!

Best wishes,

Steve Gore, VP Sports and Acting President.